


Muggle Secrets

by notearchiver



Series: Harry Potter Ficlets [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 06:56:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7158362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notearchiver/pseuds/notearchiver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Severus is thirty-six, he sometimes takes the photographs out from the box stashed under his bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Muggle Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> Content Notes: implied/referenced childhood sexual abuse, child pornography.
> 
>    
> Originally written in June of 2015 for the [Summer of Severus Comment Fest](http://severus-snape.livejournal.com/21655.html) at [severus_snape](http://severus-snape.livejournal.com/).

\-----

When Severus is thirty-six, he sometimes takes the photographs out from the box stashed under his bed.

It is, he will admit, a clichéd place to put them. Everyone knows that secrets are best kept in lock-boxes, cold metal and small keys hidden in shadows.

There are no wards on the box, no wizarding protections. Muggle protections serve best for Muggle secrets. And no one cares about Muggle secrets in Hogwarts.

Muggle secrets are old photographs with edges turned grey from handling. The grey doesn't obscure the subject of the picture, nor the splash of colours. Severus doesn't know if this is good or bad. It just is.

Just like the subject matter just is.

When Severus holds the photographs in his lap, his eyes stare back at him. He can't decide if they are more or less dead than now.

Now his body envelop the syllables of Dark curses meant to tear at flesh. Then his flesh was torn for the highest bidder, the flash of the camera, the whir of a video being recorded. Now his deeds are printed across the pages of the Prophet. Then they were passed surreptitiously from grimy hand to grimy hand.

In the end, his portrait may hang in the Headmaster's office, but these are the only pictures of him that mean anything.


End file.
